ALL OUT! CHANG CARS FOR. THE LIVING R.OOM T HE other evening I was flashing like a iny jewel through the col- umns of the Hollywood Citizen- News, a minute drop of information in my beak and a ringing headache in the offing. (Never mind why I was doing it; every man has a right to torture himself in his own way.) I had sucked the venom from the last snarling para- graph of the editorials and was about to tuck my head under my wing when my eye startled into focus at the folJowing: 'FRONT ROOM NOT CARBARN, WOMA.Ì\ CHARGES IN SUIT A lady whose sleep was disrupted rude- ly when a Los Angeles Railway Corpora- tion streetcar left its track and plowed through her house last August today filed sui't against the company for $15.000 dam- ages. Plaintiff Procapia Portugal charges negligence of the operator of the Gage Ave. shuttle line inasmuch, she contends, as the front room of her house at 463 N. Gage Ave. is a private home and not a carhouse for wandering streetcars. She charges that the car jumped the tracks at Hammil St. and Gage Ave. last August 4 late at night and struck her home with "great speed and violence," destroying part of the place and sh aking the rest of the house and her. She suffered serious injuries, including nervous and heart shock, he said I do not propose to try the case in these pages, though it needs no Solo- mon to decide where the verdict lies. The fair plaintiff's pique is pardon- able; a trolley in one's lap is a deliber- ate and flagrant invasion of privacy. My sympathy extends rather to someone whose name does not appear in the dis- patch-her attorney. To be forced to live in Los Angeles and practice law is punishmen t enough; to be asked to plead a cause like the foregoing demands that a man keep a tight rein on his reason. Using several odds and ends, like bits of string, old spools, and chIcken fat, I have constructed a masque around a vaguely par- allel situation which occurred to me. The characters, of course, are com pletely ficti- tious, and any eccentric- ity in their behavior is rooted in m} own ganglia. If you will slip on an opera cloak lined in flame-colored satin, I think we may dispense with the overture: Scene: The law chambers of George Essick and Hosmer Figg. A sparsely furnished room containing several sec- tional bookcases in golden oak, two bat- tered desks) and a steel engraving of the late C hief Justice Marshall, with a bal- loon issuing from his mouth, reading ((In orthodontia est pecunia" ("In den- tistry there is money"). As the curtain rises, .l.V oel Prosse, a junior clerk, is im- mersed in a law tome. The door opens; Essick and Figg enter heavily, carrying hriefcases. ESSICK: All right, Nostradamus, drop your domino. Were there any phone calls? PROSSE: Not since the instrument was removed SIX months ago. ESSICK ( harshly): N one of your chaff. I told you to sweep up, not sit there with your nose in a book. PROSSE: At least I can get it into a book. That's more than you can do. ESSICK: Why, you little roach- FIGG: Ah, give over, it's too hot. "'That are you reading, Noel? PROSSE: Blackstone on "Torts." ESSICK: From the trollops I see him with, he'd be better off with Blackstone " T " on arts. PROSSE (with hatred): You've a sharp tongue in your head, Mr. Essick. Look out it doesn't cut your throat. ESSICK: I've had enough of your sauce, you young squirt. You're fired! PROSSE (taking his hat): The usual severance pay, I presume? ESSICK (sweetly) : You know the code, Counsellor. Go ahead and sue. 17 PROSSE: I'll see you in the small- claims court. Goodbye, you leech. (H t:: exits, a penholder flung by Essick quiv- ering in the door after him.) FIGG: Gosh, Essick, that's no way. Only yesterday you fired Mandamus, our old colored retainer. ESSICK: You use that word "retain- er" once more and I'll put a slug in your back. (Figg shrugs, buries himself in a law journal. Essick scrawls discon- solately on his blotter. A footstep sounds in the corridor.) FIGG (fumpin g up) : A client! ESSICK: Don't blow your top. Prob- ably a sneak from the Bar Association. (A small man in a rumpled mohair suit and dry-cleaned panama enters, looks about anxiously.) MAN: I got to see a lawyer right away. My name is Minneapolis-Leo Minneapolis. ESSICK: What are you-a Greek? MAN : Well, I'm not a Greek's brother. FIGG : You mean } our brother's not a Greek? MAN (plaintively): I don't know what I mean. I got a lot of trouble. ESSICK : We all have. What is it? MAN: I want to sue a massage parlor on Alta Yenta Drive. Yesterday I was a little acid, see? So I figure I'll go down to the Friendly Fevers and get a good baking out. ESSICK (wearily): Keep it crisp. MAN: Today I couldn't hardly do my brain-breathing exercises. My bile don't function properly and my whole left side is numb. ESSICK: Listen, brother, you haven't got a leg to stand on. (His diagnosis is accurate; the petitioner's knees buckle sharply and he almost founders. Essick A